


The Hustle

by SaltCore



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Hanzo's danger fetish, Improper Use of Firearms, Inspired by Preacher, Is it flirting or is it attempted homocide, M/M, McCree thinks Dragon Man sus, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:46:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29096724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaltCore/pseuds/SaltCore
Summary: Hanzo is up to something in the Big Easy, just not what Jesse thought.
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada
Comments: 11
Kudos: 116





	The Hustle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TormentaPrudii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TormentaPrudii/gifts).



> I have Preacher brainworms

It’s a hell of a night to try to tail someone through the French Quarter. 

The streets are full of overflow from the bars. Hundreds of bodies, painted unreal colors by the neon signage, mill and shout around him. The bass lines of dozens of songs playing on bar speakers coalesce into a tooth rattling hum under the noise of the crowd. The humidity choked air only adds to the claustrophobia of the narrow streets, makes everything feel closer than it really is.

Still, Jesse does it.

He dances around the drunks on silent feet, bobbing and weaving like a seasoned boxer. He never loses sight of his target in the throng. He is, after all, a professional.

And while this might not be a job, per se, he's no less dedicated. It's not just his next meal on the line, it's the safety of his squad. His _people_. There's a snake among them.

Shimada Hanzo. Assassin. Gangster. Fratricidal asshole. 

And Jesse knows exactly what you do with snakes.

It doesn’t matter that Winston cleared him, Winston did most of his time in R&D. He doesn't have the instincts _certain_ divisions cultivated. Sure as shit can’t read people.

It doesn’t matter that Genji wants him here. Genji ought to know better. Genji ought to have cut him down like he used to say he would. Healing and harmony is all well and good, but he’s got no guarantee his brother’s not going to try to finish the job.

So, when Hanzo left the safehouse, Jesse followed. He can’t tolerate Hanzo slithering off to Christ knows where unsupervised. Not when he’s seen first hand what this man is capable of.

Hanzo stops in front of a bar. From the outside, it looks no different than any of the others. Makes it hard to tell why it was this one in particular Hanzo chose. Hanzo checks his phone, then looks at the door. He seems almost hesitant, but before Jesse can be sure he squares his shoulders and walks inside. 

If Jesse went in after him, then he’d have to tip his hand. Even he’s not good enough to hide from someone who knows his face in the same room. He hovers in a shadow across the cobble paved street, waiting to see if Hanzo will come back out. 

Then, despite the noise of the Quarter, he hears a sound he’d know anywhere—gunfire. No one else reacts, too drunk or too absorbed by the debaucherous spectacle, but Jesse knows what he heard. He crosses the street with purpose, bumping into one liquor-soaked man, and hauls the door to the bar open.

He’s met with a smoky, dimly lit room. It has none of the trappings of a normal bar—tables and chairs and kitsch—just an old run of wood to serve drinks on and open space. There’s a group milling around, mostly men but a handful of women. A few turn to look at him, but the rest are cheering, or maybe jeering, it’s hard to tell, at someone at the far end of the room. 

At a man, struggling to get to his feet. 

Jesse notes the battered kevlar vest and the drunk flush on the man’s cheeks, then he moves on, looking for Hanzo. Spots him, leaning against the bar draining the dregs of god-knows-what from a glass. Looking casual as anything, but not quite like he belongs. He’s too prim for one. Lacks the grime of backwater America that Jesse knows all too well. The staggered man takes off the vest and drops it on the bar, then money changes hands. 

Jesse’s heard of places like these, the last stop of the adrenaline-junkie gambler. Put on the vest, pick a gun. Bet on whether you keep your feet, whether the vest holds, whether the shooter doesn’t miss, all a once. He’s never played himself, because he’s not bugfuck crazy. 

So, that raises a very pressing question: what the fuck is Hanzo doing here?

Hanzo turns and speaks to the bartender-slash-bookie, then takes the vest and slings it over his shoulder. Jesse watches him flash a surprisingly charming smile and pass a crypto chit across the bar. Then he meets Jesse’s eyes and turns that sly little smile on him. 

The kind of fear that comes with being put off balance freezes the blood in Jesse's veins, but he doesn’t let his unease show on his face. Did Hanzo figure out he was being tailed? Did he plan this somehow?

Hanzo doesn't quite look away as he trails his fingers over the selection of guns. Shitty old things, barely maintained. Each one has a ring of painter's tape around the grip with odds scrawled on. The smallest is a little deringer is 2:1. The largest, an antique desert eagle looking piece with 50:1 written on the tape. Jesse glances up from the guns to the vest. Those things are one-and-done, if you actually give a shit. And 50:1 seems low when that hand cannon could probably punch through fresh kevlar with a lucky shot.

Hanzo picks up one pistol by the barrel, the one marked 24:1, no larger than a 9mm, from the middle of the pack and walks towards Jesse.

“You look like a gambling man. Want to play?” He asks, tapping Jesse in the chest with the butt. This close, Jesse can smell the bottom shelf liquor on his breath and the cologne on his neck. Can see the little jag in his undercut where he must have gotten overzealous touching it up. The heaviness of his eyeliner, the dryness of his lips. Jesse broadly thinks of him as always looking put together, but up close the cracks show.

Jesse grunts, not quite dismissive but close. Both Hanzo's eyebrows quirk up, and his expression shifts to an insincere kind of surprise.

“What, do you not think you can make the shot?” 

Mother _fucker_. 

Jesse snatches the gun out of Hanzo’s hand and hands the bookie his own crypto chit. Hanzo’s smug little grin makes Jesse’s trigger finger itch, but Jesse’s curiosity, along with the witnesses and the fact that Hanzo is still technically a squadmate, temper the urge. What game is he playing? What’s the point of this?

Hanzo dons the vest on his way to the back of the room, and Jesse uses that time to inspect the gun. There’s only one round, but it’s a good make. There’ll be enough slop in this thing without shoddy ammunition adding more uncertainty. 

But there’s something to be said for uncertainty, Jesse thinks, turning the weapon over in his hands. A body turning up in the Big Easy isn’t news. He looks around the bar again, sees gouges in the wall directly behind where Hanzo is standing. A body probably turns up around here often enough as it is.

And this pistol’s a piece of shit. Even he can’t compensate for a weapon he’s never fired before. Oh, he could be trying to play the game fair, but who knows where the bullet will end up. And if it put an end to Hanzo, to the threat he embodies, right here, right now, well— 

The world’s a funny old place like that sometimes.

He looks back up to Hanzo, who’s standing there with the vest secured and his arms folded neatly behind his back. His tips his chin up, the very faintest glimmer of a sneer on his lips. Unarmed and alone, he still looks dangerous, even now. _Cocky_ , even.

He’s seen Jesse work. Knows what he can do. So surely even an arrogant fuck like him can’t be expecting Jesse to miss, but he has to know that Jesse might consider missing to be an entirely different thing. Is he so sure Jesse won’t kill him, out of deference to Genji’s wishes?

Jesse, for his part, isn’t feeling particularly deferential.

He walks toward a sloppily line painted on the floor, just in front of the crowd. His boots stick to the floor as he walks, caught in the grime of spilled drinks and spilled, well. Doesn’t bear thinking about. The crowd cheers when he takes his place at the line. He can see half a dozen weak spots, places where the armor is about to give. He also sees the places it still looks if not pristine at least strong. 

Downrange, Hanzo smiles likes he’s getting away with something. There’s a fire in his eyes, a flush on his checks that can’t possibly have anything to do with the rotgut. Whatever game this really is, Jesse suspects he’s already been played. But he still gets to pick who wins.

Jesse raises the pistol and, making his decision, fires.

Hanzo doesn’t fall. Most folks who’ve had the good fortune to not be shot at don’t realize that a bullet, while deadly, doesn’t actually have enough force to knock people to the ground. People fall because that’s what they think should happen. No different than a faith healer shoving old ladies on the forehead, when you get right down to it. 

But Hanzo, who’s probably been shot before, doesn’t fall. Instead he laughs, of all things, just chuckling like a goddamn maniac. His hand drifts to the fresh hole in the vest, just left of center in one of the few remaining strong spots, and comes away clean.

“Too bad, cowboy, I win,” he says, almost sounding giddy.

Jesse, for his part, can only stand and blink. His mind can’t make sense of what he’s seeing, and somehow, he knows he’s been had. He just can’t make sense of how.

Hanzo saunters over to the bar, vest hanging casually over his shoulder by a single finger and still _grinning_ , and Jesse realises he’s still standing here holding what is very probably an illegal weapon with rifling patterns in who knows how many databases and maybe he shouldn’t be. Hanzo trades the vest for his chit, and Jesse the gun for his own. It could only be Jesse’s imagination, but the chit feels lighter, somehow.

Then some of Jesse’s faculties finally come back, and he leans over Hanzo to whisper,

“Outside. Now.”

Jesse’s relieved when Hanzo follows with no more prompting than that. Jesse takes them down the street and into the darkness of an alley near a broken street lamp. He takes a moment to check that they’re alone, then turns to face Hanzo, who’s leaning against the wall way too casually for someone who just got shot.

“What the fuck?”

“You can have the money back,” Hanzo says lightly.

“What? No, I don’t give a shit about that. What the fuck were you doin' in there?”

“Why were you following me?” Finally, some of Hanzo’s usual sharpness returns. “The mission is over, the safehouse is secure, my presence is not necessary for a few more hours.”

Jesse can tell Hanzo knows exactly _why_ he was followed, but he clearly wants to hear it.

“You first.”

“Is it so strange that I would want to enjoy myself?”

“That is not my idea of fun.”

“A shame. You don’t know what you’re missing.”

Jesse shrugs that off. 

“Why’d you bet _me?_ What’re you playin’ at?”

“Why did you accept?”

Jesse grits his teeth. He _shouldn’t_ have, hindsight makes that perfectly clear. He’d let himself be goaded. But this is still a hell of a lot of bullshit for, what, a little bit of leverage? Jesse had, frankly, made no bones about what he thought of Hanzo’s addition to Overwatch. Genji would be angry if he found out about tonight, but that’s all Hanzo has gained. The possibility of tension between him and Genji. As for everyone else, well, Jesse’s done a hell of a lot worse than _not_ kill someone.

“Fine, I’ll go first again. You were the only one in there who might actually try to kill me,” Hanzo says, with a startling amount of sincerity.

“Is that what you wanted?” Jesse asks, incredulous. 

“Not exactly.”

“Then _why?_ ” 

Hanzo shrugs, then says,

“I didn’t want to know the outcome.”

“You are,” Jesse pauses and gestures helplessly, briefly at a loss for words. This upends all of Jesse's careful calculus. He assumed some kind of plan. Some kind of active malice. He doesn't know what to do with a guy who will get shot just for the thrill of it. “You are terminally goddamn insane.”

He shrugs again. Doesn't dispute Jesse's assessment.

“So, McCree, is your suspicion sated?”

A thunderous sigh rattles out of Jesse and he lifts his hands. 

“Fine. Yes, it is. You went off on your own, and I had to know that you weren’t goin’ to jeopardize the rest of the team. There, happy?”

While Hanzo doesn’t roll his eyes, there’s a tightness in his expression that seems to convey almost the same thing.

“Well,” Hanzo scoffs, “with that unpleasantness out of the way, I’ll be on my way.”

“Now wait a minute--”

“Take off is at 0700, is it not? I’ll be back in plenty of time.”

“Unless you find another fool thing to do like this one and your luck doesn’t hold.” What Jesse says next feels unbelievable even to him, but Hanzo’s sheer bugfuck lunacy must be catching. “Look, I’ve been here a time or ten. I know my way around, so, if you want, I can show you how to get your goddamn adrenaline rush, and I won’t have to sneak your corpse out of the local morgue.”

Hanzo regards him with narrowed eyes and bald mistrust. For a moment, Jesse thinks he’s going to ninja his way onto the rooftop and Jesse will have to raise the rest of the crew for a manhunt. But instead of escape, Hanzo extends his hand toward the exit of the alley and says,

“After you then.” 

* * *

“What _happened_ to you?” 

Lena gawks shamelessly. Jesse winces, which pulls at his swollen lip, which makes him want to wince harder. Still, he’s come away from a night in the Big Easy much worse. At least he remembers how he got the busted mouth and the shiner. And isn’t waking up in the gutter like that other fella.

“Sudden lapse of impulse control, but none to fret, it’s all back now.”

She’s about to needle him about it, but then Hanzo crests the top of the stairs, looking like the very picture of _rode hard and put up wet_ , and that gives Jesse all the opportunity he needs to sneak into the kitchen for a cup of that oh so blessed liquid waiting in the carafe.

Lena’s questioning only gets louder and more put out by Hanzo’s dedicated monosyllabism, but she doesn’t follow him into the kitchen. Jesse can hear Hanzo walk up behind him, which says quite a bit about how well he’s functioning, and, in a burst of sudden magnanimity, Jesse slides the mug of coffee down the counter toward him.

“Thank you,” Hanzo says after a moment of hesitation.

“No problem.” 

Jesse pours another mug, then turns to face Hanzo. The sheer relief the sudden injection of caffeine has brought him is obvious. He looks strangely average—just a tired man leaning against a kitchen counter. They drink in relative silence, listening to the safehouse creak with the movements of the others as they ready themselves to leave. Jesse, for his part, was ready last night. He suspects Hanzo is also packed. 

“Well—”

“I—”

Both their teeth click shut as they realized they’d each interrupted the other. Jesse gestures for Hanzo to continue.

“I just wanted to say, I didn’t have an entirely terrible time.”

“High praise,” Jesse huffs. “Comin’ from someone who snuck off.”

“ _You_ also were not where you were supposed to be.”

“Hey now!”

“And you shot me.”

Jesse scowls at him. 

“You’re really gonna bring that up?”

From the self-satisfied way Hanzo is smirking, Jesse knows he thinks he’s won. He waves him off with a roll of his eyes.

“Next time you get an idea like this in your head, you ask me how to have a not ‘entirely terrible time’, all right? Save me some runnin’ around.”

Hanzo hums, maybe skeptical but maybe not, and turns to wash out his now empty mug.

“I might just do so.”


End file.
